Fire survivor feels thankful

Marjorie Kopsco has plenty to be thankful for - and surviving a fire that could easily have taken her life as well as the lives of her family is only the beginning.

Kopsco's home in Newtown caught fire on the night of March 22.

Asleep downstairs, Kopsco awoke to smoke coming from the living room and ran upstairs to wake her husband, daughter and two grandchildren.

Everybody made it out of the house through the front door except for Kopsco, who had stopped to call 911.

With the smoke thickening around her, Kopsco jumped from a second story window.

"If it had been daylight, I don't think I could've done it," said Kopsco, who only recently returned to house. "It was pitch black, the power had just gone out. If I had been able to see how high up I was I don't think I could've jumped."

Kopsco shattered her ankle and broke a shin bone when she landed in a bush.

"I had a wonderful surgeon. His first instinct was to amputate both legs, but now here I am walking on them," she said.

One leg is currently in an air cast and able to bear Kopsco's full weight. The other is in a supportive boot and able to bear only partial weight.

Kopsco began physical therapy on Monday and hopes to be completely healed by the time school starts up again.

Kopsco's husband, Kenneth, suffered burns to his hands, but has recovered.

The couple are staying with Kopsco's daughter,
Lisa Douville
, in Ridgefield.

She said contractors have told her that their four-bedroom home, which suffered smoke and heat damage to the living and dining rooms and smoke damage to the rest of the house, should be fixed in time to move in by Labor Day.

Now well on her way to recovery, Kopsco said she has found plenty to be thankful for.

Among the top of her list is the generous spirit she found among the teachers and students in New Milford, who chipped in to help raise money to offset the cost of making her home livable once more.

Last Tuesday, Kopsco received the latest token of their generosity in the form of a $1,130 check from students at
Pettibone School
in New Milford.

The money was raised largely through the sale of decorated flower pots created by the third-graders in Charlene
Carson's
class.

Carson said the project came about after Principal
Paula Kelleher
emailed the staff in March asking for ways to raise money to help Kopsco.

With the help of Agway, who donated more than 120 four-inch flower pots, Meadowbrook Nursery, who contributed enough petunias to fill them all, and a number of parents who pitched in with donations of pots, soil, flowers and money, the students set to work.

Pots were decorated with the student's own fingerprints along with dots made of puffy paint, then filled with soil and flowers.

"I thought that it was pretty cool because we raised a lot of money," said
Melissa Rebelo
, 9, who painted flowers with fingertips and stamped butterflies on her pot.

The pots were to be sold for $5 each on March 12, just in time for Mother's Day, but were so popular that they were sold out before the actual sale was to take place.

"It broke my heart that I had to send children away and make an all-school announcement that we had sold out of the flower pots, especially when the little first-graders came down," said Carson.

Carson said that at least one teacher gave the pots she had purchased to some of the students who missed out.

"I was totally overwhelmed. My husband had to drive me (to the check presentation)," she said. "I was speechless. I really was. I was just blown away by this. These people are just wonderful."

Students in Carson's class were equally as touched.

"It wasn't only fun because we got to decorate pots, but it was nice because we got to do something for other people and they got to live a better life because of it," said
Lea Krebs
, 8. "She was so happy when she got it she was crying tears of joy."

Kopsco said support didn't just come from Pettibone.

"It's not just Pettibone, but the entire New Milford school district," she said, noting that she also received donations from
Sarah Noble
Intermediate and Hill and Plain Elementary Schools.

Monetary support wasn't all she received.

"All the children, throughout my stay in the hospital, sent cards and teachers came to visit. I know there were a lot of prayers. It helped tremendously to know there were people out there thinking good thoughts," she said.

Kopsco said that her goal now is to be successful enough in her physical therapy that she can go back to work when school starts up again.

She's looking forward, she said, to seeing all of those who helped her during her difficult times.

"I would like to be able to thank all the people who cared to put in the time and take the effort . . I would just like people to know how much I appreciated it. My words just can't describe what everything's meant to me," she said.

"I just want everybody to know how lucky they are to have this quality of people in the schools. I feel very proud to be able to say that I work for
New Milford Schools
. They're wonderful people and I'm not going to forget it."